They’ve reached the fourth round stage at the Toronto Masters and Andy Schooler has picked out his best bets.
Tennis betting tips: National Bank Open
1pt Andrey Rublev to beat Alejandro Davidovich Fokina at evens (General)
1pt Frances Tiafoe to beat Alex de Minaur at 9/4 (General)
Andrey Rublev v Alejandro Davidovich Fokina
There are some eye-catching head-to-head records attached to the last-16 ties in Toronto.
Francisco Cerundolo (12/5) is 3-0 up on top seed Alex Zverev, while Casper Ruud (11/10) has won both previous meetings with Karen Khachanov.
However, the one I’m going to get involved with is Andrey Rublev, who is up 5-1 in his series with Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
Now, the Spaniard is in fine form at the moment having reached the final in Washington last week but Rublev’s record is a strong one here and he’s up 2-0 on hardcourts.
Other notables in the numbers between the pair show that Fokina’s serve has struggled to dominate the Russian, who remains ranked eight places higher. Fokina’s highest first-serve-points-won figure in those matches is just 70%, while he’s faced a whopping 55 break points in those six contests. To give that some perspective, Fokina has created only 33 himself.
Rublev’s comeback win over Lorenzo Sonego yesterday will have done his confidence the world of good – he dropped serve only once – and I just think making him the underdog here could be the wrong move by the layers.
Frances Tiafoe v Alex De Minaur
I don’t deny that De Minaur should be favourite here – he was the man who beat Fokina in last week’s Washington final – but I’m surprised to see Tiafoe as big as 9/4.
De Minaur has also had the benefit of a walkover in Toronto so he arrives at this match having played only two sets so far to Tiafoe’s six. That’s probably most welcome after his exploits in DC.
However, Tiafoe loves the summer hardcourt season and has regularly produced his best results at this time of year.
Having that motivation seems key to the American, who has the ability to disappoint, but you’d expect the fairly fast surface here to work in his favour in this match up with De Minaur’s game still based on his excellent defence.
Tiafoe needed three sets to beat Aleksandar Vukic on Friday but he created a lot of chances to break. He’ll need to be more clinical if he’s to land the upset here but it’s more than possible. While consistency remains an issue, he was very good against Flavio Cobolli last week.
Tiafoe is 2-1 down on the head-to-head, although they’ve haven’t played since 2022 (when Tiafoe won in Paris), and I’m just not convinced there should be such a wide price differential.
A small bet on the underdog is the call.
Posted at 1010 BST on 02/08/25
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